


zugzwang

by Lera_Myers



Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Medical Procedures, Rape Aftermath, Talking About Trauma, scumbag Ryder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-04
Updated: 2017-05-04
Packaged: 2018-10-27 21:41:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10817304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lera_Myers/pseuds/Lera_Myers
Summary: Written for a prompt. Ryder rapes Suvi and abandons her for dead. She is left to pick up the pieces.





	zugzwang

**Author's Note:**

> [original prompt](http://masseffectkink.livejournal.com/9940.html?thread=46410196#t46410196)

the clothes are gray, and they aren’t hers. everything she wore was taken as evidence, stored with what the doctors found as they scraped and prodded and spoke in voices disconnected from their mouths, asking questions she couldn’t bring herself to answer but for nods and shakes of her head. all that’s left are the gray clothes and her omni, still strapped to her wrist but turned off, now.  
  
impossibly, her mouth still tastes like earth tea, and maybe that’s the worst part - knowing he took that from her, too.  
  
an asari doctor hangs up her own coat in the hall. gives two fast raps on the door, then pushes in.  
  
“miss anwar? i’m dr. t’erli, the psychologist.”  
  
“actually,” she murmurs, bizarrely, “it’s _dr._ anwar.”  
  
(she remembers them snapping earlier, as they drew blood and handed her pills to prevent this and that: _“where the **hell** is the psychologist? she was supposed to be here two hours ago!”_ and she remembers thinking, no, no, no.)  
  
“dr. anwar, then.” blue hands flip through papers, notes, a retelling. “hon? before we get into what happened, do you think i could scan your omni? i just want to know if there’s someone i should contact.”  
  
she curls her right arm close to her chest, as if they’d take it by force. scan the omni, find the numbers she programmed in under 'in case of emergency.' one of those numbers is _his_ , she remembers, and - “it’s better if you don’t,” she whispers to the floor.  
  
“well, let’s find somewhere you feel like you can start, okay?”  
  
she gave them information earlier - name, age, date of birth, date revived from cryo - words tripping over themselves, turning into sounds that made her choke. again, they go over it.  
  
“something it says here is,” continues the psychologist, eyeing her notes, “when the nurse first brought you in, you were screaming about a man, but you never said his name, and begging him not to be angry.”  
  
she wills her throat to close, the floor to swallow her, anything to keep her from having to explain.  
  
“i just knew someone was touching me. i didn’t see who it was.”  
  
“could you tell me more about that - what you were saying? do you know who did this to you?”  
  
her chest squeezes. her shoulders hunch. she thinks of the people who mourned alec ryder, remembers cora declaring he was right to pass the pathfinder title to his son instead of her. jaal, in all his passion, telling his people stories over the comm channel about what had been accomplished.  
  
silently, she wonders what a second pathfinder falling from grace would do to them.  
  
“hon?”  
  
“i’m not sure i want to press charges, ma’am,” she whispers to the bedsheets.  
  
the asari doctor sets down her datapad. “we’re going to make sure you’re safe. i promise.”  
  
it’s not about that, she wants to say, not completely. it’s about imagining herself standing in front of the officers on the nexus, begging them not to dismiss her as hysterical, or a liar. it’s about wondering which of their friends would take whose side. it’s about word traveling fast, and everyone knowing not just what happened to her, but seeing her as the reason the humans changed pathfinders _again_.  
  
(the kit the doctors put together is still in the other room, but it won’t hold weight if she doesn’t testify. they told her as much.)  
  
fingers, feather-light, on her shoulder. “suvi? i don’t know if this was someone you loved, maybe a family member, or if he made any threats…”  
  
“not his name,” she blurts, almost pleading. “i can’t do it, not now.”  
  
“okay. do you think you could tell me a little about what happened, though? it would help me help you.”  
  
(she shuts her eyes, and is back in cryo on the nexus. harry runs reports beside them, sara ryder chats and sings.)  
  
“i’d met his sister for the first time.” this is the easy part, before the pain, but still choppy, broken. “we were sitting together, drinking tea. she was pretty, and - we ended up flirting.”  
  
somehow she expects the psychologist to recoil, which would be strange even if she weren’t asari. somehow a pulse of relief still goes through suvi when she doesn’t.  
  
“right, and her brother, the one who did this to you. where was he?”  
  
“he came through. took me to the place he stays. he was angry.”  
  
“angry…about his sister?”

(doors that lock, an ai in his head that he silences. _“you preach about faith, anwar? i didn’t know your god taught you it was okay to lie and trick.”_ )  
  
“i led him on,” she whispers, and then shakes her head, no no stop _please_. “i mean - i didn’t really.”  
  
the doctor hums sympathetically. “a miscommunication?”  
  
“he asked if i was interested, and i told him…i said i wanted to keep things professional. i thought it was better than - telling him i only liked women.”  
  
( _“think of it as me helping you find your path.”_ lips curled into a smile, too harsh, too wide. _“fulfill your god-given purpose. it **is** what your god wants, isn’t it? men and women?”_ )  
  
“better how?” questions the psychologist, eyes kind. asking to understand, not to judge.  
  
“when you tell men the truth, they…” she rubs her palms along her arms. “sometimes, they get angry. or they offer to convert you. say you haven’t tried, and…usually, it’s better to lie. except.”  
  
the beats of silence run into each other.  
  
(her teeth clamping down on his hand, the sounds of him cursing. _“don’t be like that. it’s better this way.”_  
  
pain forcing her to shout, release the bite, his lips on hers and _noidon’twant_ \- )  
  
“what happened after that?”  
  
she covers her eyes. her fingers come away wet. “i can’t put it in words. i can’t - anymore than that.”  
  
“okay. take a minute, breathe.”  
  
glass of water, box of tissues. she mops her eyes, meets the doctor’s.  
  
“are you all right to finish, or do you want me to come back later?”  
  
“just - finish and let me go.”  
  
like ripping off a band-aid, she thinks, then wishes she hadn’t.  
  
“dr. anwar.”  
  
she nods, clutching the tissues in her hands. “i’m all right to finish,” she quavers, robotic, and of course the doctor knows she’s lying.  
  
“okay. since you gave the nurses some information earlier, and consented to a rape kit, we have a pretty clear picture of what happened.”  
  
hearing it said, the word for what he did, stings in a way she wasn’t expecting. she thinks, ugly ugly ugly. an ugly word for an ugly thing, and she doesn’t - she can’t, have that be part of her.  
  
“hon? is there anything else you want to tell me right now?”  
  
unthinkable, she wants to say, that anyone should be capable of causing someone this much pain. it shouldn’t be real. it shouldn’t.  
  
“the last thing i remember is all the snow,” she says, without really knowing why.  
  
“that’s where the nurse found you. another few minutes and hypothermia would have set in.”  
  
(red mixing with white, pooling at the bottom of the ditch, and then voices. her terror, thinking he’d come back to finish the job.)  
  
she buries her face in a double handful of tissues. “i - i don’t know what i want to do.”  
  
“okay. suvi, can you look at me? can i make you a deal?”  
  
she nods, whispers, “uhhuh.”  
  
“i want you to think of someone you want to call, or i could call for you, to be here. do you know who that would be?”  
  
kallo wouldn’t understand. but she thinks of vetra, and the way she’d move planets to help if it were happening to sid.  
  
she’s on the _tempest_ , though, and that could mean everything and nothing.  
  
“she might not be able to get here very quickly," suvi manages to get out.  
  
“we’ll give her a call, and then you can decide what you want to do - whether you want to call in the detectives or not. if she’s as good a friend as you say, i bet hearing her voice will help.”  
  
she nods, wipes her eyes with the back of her hand.  
  
“good. i’ll give you some privacy to talk to her, and afterwards i want you to try and get some sleep, okay?”  
  
how can it be _night_ , she wants to say. how can time still be moving, after everything?  
  
what she says instead is, “yes. thank you.”  
  
a warm hand squeezes her shoulder. “i’m proud of you, okay? you’ll get through this.”  
  
two minutes later she’s alone. she opens her omni, and she stares. she thinks of trying to tell vetra the awful, dirty things, thinks of reciting them to detectives and everyone knowing and _him_ finding out - how she told them all and didn’t die in that ditch with the red and white snow and and…  
  
she thinks of the cold and the earth tea and the hands, sliding, moving -  
  
when she taps the ‘call’ button, she wonders if he’ll hear vetra’s omni ringing.


End file.
